NP Re: Losing Languages--Sorta P-related

[davemarc]

From: Jeremy Osner <jeremy at xyris.com>
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2000 2:02 PM
> davemarc wrote:
>
> > In Shorris's world, wouldn't the early,
> > less-inclusive dictionaries have frozen the language's growth on the
spot?
>
> I am not sure of this, but I believe
the
> first English dictionaries did have that effect, greatly slowing the rate
of
> change in the written language by standardizing spellings. Thus we have
> "thought" and "knee", not to mention the silent "e".
>
 The development of dictionaries definitely coincided with the
standardization of spellings.  But the quoted example actually refers to the
e-thesaurus signaling the diminishment of spoken language!  Of course the
quotation might well have been missing context.

d.